Does the internet have a 1 star review problem?

> On sites like here or Reddit, I’ve noticed users do a pretty consistent job of policing through karma.

They do a decent job at downvoting/flagging spam and obvious harassment.

However, if you post something that is just ever so slightly unpopular or polarizing, you will receive the same torrent of downvotes. This makes it very hard to discuss things where you don't agree with the majority.

I would assume reviews have the same problem. Even if you had a wonderful time at a ressort, it's unlikely that this is true for evrery guest. Some guests will have a poor experience, and if they post about it they will be called a liar.

Do you remember that Black Mirror episode where people rated each other?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive_(Black_Mirror)

Anyway, the problem with 5 star based rating is that everything below 5 star will actually hurt your rating, so it become sort of binary: 5 Star is OK, everything else is bad.

On certain platforms, the average is 4.9 stars. The platform used to be nice, now it's filled with counterfeits and low quality items that look nothing as promised.

This item has 4.7 stars: https://shopee.com.my/product/110830198/5438249668?smtt=0.0....

It's a Monopoly game by the "Paker Brothers". I see 5 star reviews that say "board has been ripped, street names are wrong, tokens are made of cheap plastic, delivery a week late. But I got what I paid for." There's several which praise it for good quality. Come on, I can see "Company of Distribution of Electricity" from your video.

It has a 100% authenticity guarantee by the platform too.

Contributing to manage a small hotel (imagine it as a middle level one, nothing fancy, nothing bad, a very average one, with affordable prices), I can confirm that bad user reviews are very often "inaccurate" in the sense that they are heavily influenced by the on-the-spot (hopefully momentary) irritation of the guest at this or that (often a very minor thing or an absolutely ridicolous request) or even because they simply had a hard day and something was a little less than pure perfection in the check-in process or similar.

Being "average" and having "average" prices, we tend to have a few 5 star reviews, many 3 and 4 star reviews and a handful of 1 or 2 star one, of course.

Last 1 star review we had was about a couple that around 23:00 on a saturday night (having checked in at 20:00) lamented that they could hear the noise of an air conditioning machine (true, for some reason there was a vibration that could be heard from the room in the silence of the night) and pretended that we should fix it right now and then, immediately, refusing to move to another room (perfectly silent) that was offered to them because "it was too late".

Surely enough the next day there was a 1 star review, of course without saying that a room change was immediately offered.

The one before this was a couple years before (literally):

>Terrible

>The light on the bedside wasn't working.

What I noticed since the advent of these booking/review sites are two things:

1) the customers instead of asking for a room change or telling immediately to the reception whatever is wrong stay silent and then a day or two after post the bad review, often just the valuation without comments, so that there is no way for us to understand what "triggered" the 1 star

2) a number of people (could it be because they use smartphones and they mis-click on something?) post (good or bad) reviews that are clearly related to other hotels, I have a 4 star one (so, a good one) stating how the location is perfect, near the falls (there are no falls that I know of in a 200 km radius from here) though the swimming pools are a tadbit dated (we have no swimming pool) and it is a pity that check-in is not possible after 23:00 (we are open 24/7)

Sorting by "controversial" can occasionally be illuminating.

This of course depends on whether or not mods remove unpopular opinions, and/or ban people providing them.